Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Experts recommend a look before the leap to different care settings.

A rush to shift elder care from institutional to home- and community-based settings in order to save money could have unintended negative consequences, a long-term care industry leader warned Congress this month. AHCA President Sounds Off On Settings The American Health Care Association "is troubled by the development of a well-meaning yet factually unfounded viewpoint that the simple answer to achieving lower Medicaid costs and higher care quality is through rapidly shifting a significant population of seniors and persons with disabilities out of facilities like nursing homes and intermediate care facilities to home and community care settings," President and CEO Hal Daub said in testimony submitted to the Senate Finance and House Energy and Commerce committees on Medicaid reform.

Such an effort could drain needed funds away from patients who need intensive facility-based care and could also hurt quality of care, Daub cautioned. Organization Says More Discussion Needed Before shifting elderly care beneficiaries away from their institutional care settings, AHCA called for a thorough, objective discussion of home- and community-based care's benefits and liabilities.

For a copy of Daub's full statement, visit www.ahca.org.